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Aber frei will ich sein und ganz mein, und was ich gebe, das soll mich nicht binden.

But I want to be free and entirely my own, and whatever I give shall not bind me.

Bettina von Arnim (1785 – 1895), German writer, illustrator, and composer

(via togglesboggle)

fred_mouse

james_davis_nicoll has put up the list of 2026 Hugo Winners.

I never did get around to posting any of my reading; rather than do a comprehensive post, I'm going to do a brief commentary on the winners vs my feelings (either about the winner or the category); this is mostly for my records

Best novel: I started two, finished zero, did not vote. The winner, The Everlasting is not one of the two I started.
Best novella: I started all six, finished four. The winner, The River has Roots is one of the two I did not finish, and I liked it less than the other I did not finish. My preferred was the Kingfisher, What Stalks the Deep.
Best Novelette: I started all six, finished five*. The winner, "Never Eaten Vegetables" was my stand out fave, the first thing I read for the Hugos, and oh, it was soooooo good.
Best Short Story: Somehow, I missed reading/voting in this category. I don't remember why, at this point, given that my last votes went in 7 hours before deadline. I have no thoughts on the winner, "In My Country".
I did not attempt voting in the Best Series, Best Graphic Story or Comic, the Best Related Work (of which I'm aware of the spreadsheet of doom), either of the Dramatic Presentation, or the Games categories. If I had had the time, I would have attempted at least the Graphic Story/Comic and/or the Related work. I was entirely uninspired by any of the best series. As is usual, I have seen none of the best dramatic nominees and played none of the games.
I never vote in the editor categories, I do not understand them.
Best professional artist: I spent a reasonable amount of time enjoying the artworks selected. I ranked the winner, John Picacio, second; I liked the work of Kelly Chong more.
I had no energy for the semiprozine and fanzine categories. I've certainly looked at some of the nominees in each category this year, and maybe I should have taken an hour to think about them rather than reading something that was annoying me, but I didn't. I quite like Uncanny, winner of the semiprozine; I have previously bounced hard off Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together, winner of the fanzine category.
Best Fancast: I listen to three of these regularly so I ranked them, I have bounced off two previously and didn't rank them, and I made an attempt to listen to the sixth one and failed, so didn't rank it. But I do care enough about this category to vote even though I hadn't listened to the last one. The winner, Hugo, Girl! is one of the ones I have tried and abandoned. My preference is for Worldbuilding for Masochists, although the production quality on the most recent I tried to listen to was so bad I couldn't play it in the car, because one of the presenters was inaudible.
Best Fan writer: I follow two of these, who got my first and second place votes. I had previously read some by at least one of the others--that plus a bit of reading here didn't change that ranking. The winner, Jason Sanford, only ranks four for me. I think Örjan Westin misses out because their fanbase is younger / on platforms that trend younger.
Best Fan Artist: As with the professional artist, I spent a pleasant bit of time appreciating the art. The winner, Yuumei, is my second ranked. I liked the work of Geneva Bowers better.
Best Poem: look, poetry and I are not great mates, but it was six poems and not that much time. Even still, I found one unreadable. Of the five I finished / ranked, I thought the winner "Hex Supply Customer Support Log" was doggerl; I liked "The Mourning Robot" significantly more than any of the others because it did lovely things with language, which is my personal standard for poems. (my notes on one of the others was 'sentences with line breaks')
Lodestar: Like the novels, I didn't have time. I have no notes, and no memory of them, so I suspect I didn't start any. Which is a shame, I really want to read They Bloom At Night. I have no feelings about the winner, Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe
Astounding: I got a bit of reading done here, but only voted for one, HH Pak, because I loved the novelette so much. From what I've read of the Antonia Hodgson's (the winner) novel, they can also write, but I wasn't grabbed by it in the same way.

* here, the unfinished was one I loathed.

rionaleonhart

Yesterday, I went to see the Comedy About Spies matinée at the Adelphi Theatre! The Comedy About Spies is not a Goes Wrong production, but it is a Mischief Theatre production, and it stars most of the cast of The Goes Wrong Show.

Several other members of the Goes Wrong fandom were attending the same performance, so I met up with

Purple_vulture,

LancashireGirl and

you-know-your-name for a meal before the show! Both

Purple_vulture and

LancashireGirl told me that they previously hadn't much liked Robert, but my fanfiction had helped them like him. I was absolutely thrilled to hear I'd helped to bolster Robert's popularity within the Goes Wrong fandom. No higher praise.

We took our seats before the show;

you-know-your-name and I were sitting together. The stage had a silhouetted backdrop of the London skyline.

you-know-your-name suddenly pressed a hand over their face and started laughing.

you-know-your-name: Not me seeing Big Ben and thinking, Oh, it's that thing from Peter Pan.
Riona: I suppose you're not wrong!

Henry Lewis was very handsome and his hair looked great. That alone could have carried me very happily through a couple of hours, but, as a bonus, The Comedy About Spies is a very fun, very slick play, with great performances all around and a lot of ambitious physicality. I really enjoyed myself. What a lovingly done, absolutely committed performance of farce.

( The Comedy About Spies, 30 August 2026. )

And then, emboldened by being in the company of another Mischief fan, I went to the stage door! I've never met actors at the stage door before, and I was slightly nervous, but it was a really good experience overall.

you-know-your-name was increasingly vibrating with excitement after every person we met, which was a delight to see.

I'd brought my Christmas Carol Goes Wrong script along, just so I had something that could potentially be signed. I wasn't sure until the last moment whether I'd actually ask for autographs; I knew I wanted to ask the actors whether they were willing to be hugged, and I thought that requesting autographs on top of that might be too much! But, when Greg came out with his own pen poised and ready, it immediately became clear that the actors were very relaxed about autographing things, so I did indeed get signatures in the end.

( Meeting the Goes Wrong/Comedy About Spies cast at the stage door. )

When I got home, I told my housemates (who enjoy the Goes Wrong Show) that I'd shaken Henry Lewis's hand, and that I'd hugged the actors of Vanessa, Annie, Chris and Trevor.

I wandered out of the room, and then paused. Something didn't feel right. I flipped my Christmas Carol Goes Wrong script open and double-checked the signatures.

I poked my head back into the room. "I've just realised that, appropriately enough, I forgot that I also hugged Jonathan's actor."

I feel bad about it. I'm sorry, Greg! You were so nice!

taichara

Title: Earthbound Dragon
Fandom: Final Fantasy IV
Characters: Kain Highwind (and a few folks coming and going)
Warnings: CNTW
Summary: 50 one-sentence picofics, each to a single prompt. Written for

1character.
Comments: Because, basically. Occasional references to old sourcebook information and/or cut material.

( 50 picofictions about a dragon knight under here )

vriddy

In my quest for a grammar checker that doesn't flirt with generative AI, either in doing genAI analysis you don't want or feeding your words to their training data, I thought I'd try Ellipsus Plus and their "Writing Insights".

This morning, I fed it about 10k words worth of fic I'll be posting soon. Hoping to throw into it a couple of chapters of both my original novels later during the week before the trial ends, too. I guess first, my bad: it doesn't look like this is actually a grammar checker. More like a style checker? But word echoes, sentence lengths, etc are still very useful things I try to fix during my final "proofreading" phase ahead of posting fic or sending a doc to beta-readers, and I liked a lot of their tools.

Also, please allow me to emphasise again how customer-friendly and user-friendly Ellipsus is: you don't need a credit card to start the 7-day trial. Not only that, but they offer a "lifetime" one-time payment plan if you don't want a subscription. And not only-not only that!! If you pick the subscription option, it builds up toward a lifetime licence, so after a couple of years the subscription ends and you own it. I can't think of any other subscription-based service that offers that (or if they do, it sure isn't as obvious and clear as Ellipsus makes it!)

Now, what worked well for me, and what I'm still unfortunately missing. Note that this is obviously based on my personal grammar and prose weaknesses.

The good!

I really like how it highlights all sentences e.g. if you click Preview on the passive voice section, you'll see all of the passive sentences -- and only them -- highlighted. So you can scroll and focus on those only.
Even though my computer is old, the reports and highlights load pretty fast! (I wouldn't modify stuff while the highlights are on, though)
Repetition in sentence starts: "'She' starts 3+ sentences in a row" -- I do need that check!
The word echoes are good. Again, it highlights all the sentences, with a darker highlight on the word repeated (like "around", which I apparently use way too much in smut). Note: I copy-pasted one chapter or scene at a time. I suspect the report might get overwhelming and not be as useful if you run it on a full novel or a very long doc.
The sentence lengths report is also great! This one highlights your entire text in 4 shades of blue (for short/medium/long/very long sentences), and it makes it easy to see where there's variety, and more importantly for me, where there are too many big ass long sentences. I do my best to break those up during editing (before that final proofreading pass!), but I always miss a few. It's super cool how obvious it is when you suddenly have an entire paragraph entirely dark in the middle. (Long-ass sentences probably don't help with my pacing issues btw XD)
Note that the passive voice check isn't very good (a lot of active sentences with the verb "to be" picked up, e.g. "We're fighting, then?") but that's fine and pretty common with these checks in my experience. It's still an easy report to scan through.
The adverbs and repeated phrases reports are nice for a quick scan too. I didn't go in-depth with the adverbs, mostly checking there weren't too many repetitions, but for the repeated phrases I nearly always modified something when I had 4-word (or more!) repeated phrase, so it's quite neat.

The bad? Well. Many of the actual grammar bits, unfortunately, but that's on me!

Turns out Insights is not actually advertised as a grammar checker, that was my misunderstanding. Whoops.

Stuff I can mitigate

( Read more... )

Real problems I do need a grammar checker to help with :(

( Read more... )

I was building this list for myself as I tried it all out, then figured I might as well make a post out of it so I can refer back to it later? It's also a handy list of stuff to check as I continue on my quest for grammar checkers. What tools do you use for grammar? Any rec under the "no thanks AI actually" column? Or tips to remember the rules better in the first place? ;) Then again, some of my problems are rule issues, but just as often it's just distracted typos that happen regardless of knowledge...

Current Mood: studious

flareonfury

Well fell asleep last night on the couch after trying to watch the latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and there was a power glitch. Everything came back on except for the internet and since I was on the couch with Xena and Gabby cuddled on top of me, I just played Dreamlight until I got super sleepy and fell asleep until early this morning. I was very comfortable between the two cats but bladder called and won.

Welp, if you told my younger self that I would ever icon Lana Lang, I'd probably would have laughed at you.... but well, I did it. But I did really love Superman & Lois' version of Lana a lot, maybe it was her writing or casting - I'm not quite sure. I really enjoyed making these icons, I'm proud at how well the textures came out with the cropping/images. And I just signed up/did the icons in the nick of time since the challenge ends September 1st.

Games

Dreamlight Valley apparently already had Lucky - but as a pet... which fine - that doesn't give me a lot of hope that they'd at least give us Perdita & Pongo like the Lady & Tramp plus the animals from the Lion King. I did finally get Maleficent though! Still haven't gotten to Aurora but maybe later this week or next. The game keeps glitching so I have to restart it a bunch.

Shows

My Adventures with Superman Season 3 ( Read more... )

Lanterns Season 1 (as of the first two episodes) ( Read more... )

X-Men '97 Season 2 ( Read more... )

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 so far ( Read more... )

Sterling Point Season 1 on Prime ( Read more... )

My Life With the Walter Boys Season 3 ( Read more... )

Ted Lasso Season 4 ( Read more... )

Anyway I think that's it as of right now - I need to go find my phone and then get ready for bed since it's after 11 already. So maybe next time will be a Supergirl and Spider-Man: Brand New Day review.... which would be good because I do want to watch them again anyway.

delphi

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kradeelav

Franklin created his first alter ego when he was in his teens: a middle-aged widow named Silence Dogood. Mrs. Dogood allowed Franklin to evade an embargo against publication imposed by his jealous elder brother James, a printer to whom Ben was apprenticed. James had a newspaper and sought contributors, but he refused Ben’s submissions as corrosive of the master-apprentice relationship. So Ben disguised his handwriting and surreptitiously slipped letters from Mrs. Dogood under the door of the print shop. Franklin’s account of her life delighted readers while underscoring the difficulties facing widows and women of the day.

- Among All the Great Things Benjamin Franklin Invented or Discovered, His Alter Egos Gave Him the Most Freedom

( was charmed by this and how evading a style of informal censorship was every bit as natural to him as it was to me/most likely many of you reading this. i think he would appreciate early fujo culture very much. )

althea_valara

communal_creators is now open for sign-ups! The round runs from September 15th to October 14th (with make-up days allowed for anyone observing religious holidays/whatever during the round) and the community welcomes ALL creativity! We love to cheer each other on, and the Discord has been active recently with new and returning folks, eager to get started.

smallweb is hosting Small Web September again! Here's your chance to chat and commiserate with others working on their small web sites.

I will be participating in both, and yes, counting my smallweb activity for Communal Creators. Come join me!

squidgiepdx

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thispatternismine

( get rekt, idiot )

It's not often you can stand atop the smoking corpse of the boss you've just defeated.

I've earned these photos.

Current Mood: lethargic
Current Music: Horizon Forbidden West OST

adore

Moontime began today, August 30. I started bleeding at around 12.30 p.m. after a morning of intense and incessant cramping. Used a menstrual disc almost all day and I love it, it feels like I'm not wearing anything!

I took two naps but I'm getting sleepy again...

flareonfury

It's been awhile since I did a meme, so figured it was about time. Both memes were snagged from

impala_evolved.

This or That: Tropes addition. Feel free to copy/paste if you want to play!

slow burn or love at first sight // fake dating or secret dating // enemies to lovers or best friends to lovers // there’s only one bed or long-distance correspondence // hurt/comfort or amnesia // fantasy au or modern au* // mutual pining or domestic bliss // smut or fluff // canon-compliant or fix-it // reincarnation or character death// one-shot or multi-chapter // kid fic or road trip fic // arranged marriage or accidental marriage // high-school romance or middle-age romance // time travel or isolated together // neighbors or roommates // sci-fi au or magic au // body swap or gender bent // angst or crack // apocalyptic or mundane

*So I do like Modern AUs, it just kinda has to be certain fandoms? I know I really loved The 100's modern Bellamy/Clarke AUs. I've read a couple Bridgerton and Game of Thrones ones but lost interest usually. I guess it would depend on the fandom.
** I also still love: love at first sight, secret dating, best friends to lovers, amnesia (Overboard anyone? Also 10 Things That Never Happened which had fake!amnesia), and canon compliant (although most of my favorite ships are non-canon so yeah that doesn't usually work). I just love the other one more.

Dw history meme
When did you join Dreamwidth? June 14, 2009. I can't believe it's been seventeen years? That makes me feel old.

Why did you join Dreamwidth? Originally, it was sometime after dreamwidth came about and I think that was because of one the larger purges that LJ did back which honestly was one of the first or second big blows to LJ fandom spaces that I experienced - and I think it was the safer option and also most similar formatting that I loved about LJ compared to the other places people went to although I did end up joining tumblr.

What's the meaning behind your Dreamwidth username? same name as my LJ - wanted to it be seamless transition if anyone happened to want to find me from LJ. But anyway it has two meanings, the original name - flare on fury just squished together.... and the second one after I realized what it spelled Flareon Fury aka that fiery Eevee evolution from Pokémon. Which works! I love Flareon too. So basically a two-for-one deal.

What's your favorite thing about Dreamwidth? I have to say that it uses the system that LJ used (the journals/communities) and has improved on it. I much prefer this version of interaction than tumblr where I just feel like I'm lost in the abyss (I mean don't get me wrong pretty gifs/fanart, but it's just chaos to me) and things like Discord where I literally cringe at. There are a lot of events and communities.

What's your least favorite thing about Dreamwidth? Sometimes I feel alone in posting in communities and that I'm spamming people because of it since I'll look for new posts and I'm like the only person posting new. I've run a few Drabble-A-Thons and other events, and no one participated in which sucks.

Dreamwidth free, paid or premium? Paid so that I can have 150 icon slots! (and to support the site)

What do you get out of Dreamwidth that you don't get from anywhere else? I have to agree with what impala_evolved said "DW still moves slow enough for me to post comments a day (or more) later, and I can catch up on my reading page, and it's still searchable. And I can customize my own blog!!" I love LOVE being able to design my websites so I hate not being able to control how my journal/communities look although we did lose several really great layout communities that had been on LJ. I also love the tagging system.

Dreamwidth tip for beginners? I would say join communities for your various fandoms and keep the fandoms alive by interacting with those fandoms! Participate in fic events that interest you. Ship and Let Ship - do not shame people for shipping what they do. Also Your Kinks are Not My Kinks or however that saying goes - again do not shame people for their kinks. COMMENTING - so important! If you're not a writer or graphic maker - let them know you like it or comment in discussion posts - best way to keep the writers/graphic makers/fans keep the fandoms alive. Also if you have nothing on your blog currently, write a little about you section (can be broad and just be about the fandoms you like - doesn't have to be as in depth as mine) and snag some icons from

fandom_icons or the many other icon communities out there.

galadhir

So... my sword dance that I only just made up, which I intended to debut to a friendly audience for critique at Christmas, with the aim of presenting the finished version at our new Shimmyfest next June? That sword dance? I am dancing it at a hafla for a bunch of strangers on 5th September.

What was I thinking?!

Actually, Elizabeth had suggested that in order to drum up attendance at SparkleFens, we should be present at the other local haflas, so that they felt it was only fair to come to ours. Accordingly, when I heard about this one I couldn't help but volunteer.

I think I'm ready. I keep forgetting the dance, but I always do that and have to improvise something until I hit a bit I remember again. So I might as well embrace that as my process.

My outfit is ... 98% ready. I had a dress rehearsal yesterday, and found that the outfit is no trouble to dance in. However there's a bit - when I raise my hands above my head - where the bra rides up, and the black mesh leotard rides down at the front and there is a small gap between them at the middle of the front. That doesn't look good at all.

Accordingly I bought a large red rose, a 20cm length of black stretch mesh, and a half metre length of black velvet from the local haberdashery, with the idea that I could either hide the gap behind the rose, add an extra panel of mesh to the leotard's neckline, or have a velvet drape under the bra.

Then I sewed an extra panel of mesh onto the neckline and added the rose to the bra. Now I need to put everything back on and see if that has sorted the problem, or if I need the velvet drape as well.

The rose is not really goth enough - the red is too bright - but it was the best match they had. I will rub some charcoal into it until it looks like a better fit, and just hope I won't have to go out in the rain.

I had to have my dress rehearsal without music, because when I got to the dance studio it turned out I had left my phone at home. But at least I learned some stuff about the outfit, and in fact dancing the dance without music was probably harder than doing it with.

vriddy

General status:

Line editing: I had a few GYWO articles around improving prose in my dreamwidth memories, so I kinda tried to create a checklist from that and adjusting it to my needs as I edit the LeopardTree fic. Even without GYWO access, this Tumblr essay covers a lot and one could do worse than compressing it into a list! Making my own list of weak annoying words I abuse, too (grab, move, make...). So far so good, though it's nowhere as joyful as the structural edits were for the Soul Thief!! (Still chasing that editing high XD) I guess by forcing myself to actually rework my sentences or find synonyms rather than just go "Urgh! Grabbing again!" I'm hoping the stronger words will come to me more naturally over time, rather than remain stuck in my passive vocabulary. One can hope (and experiment ;)).

Cursed Witch feedback: I reread all the feedback and wrote a big thoughtdump post, which as I hoped took the thoughts of my mind to make space for other things. The conversations in the comments also turned out really helpful, I'm still turning a few replies in my head. Whatever happens next, though, I need to let it rest for longer.

BBTP smut: I finished the maid smut one-shot, but editing it is taking more time than expected, especially considering the upcoming September 1st deadline...! I haven't written or edited smut in a long time. I still hope to make it in time for bbtp_challenge though!

Projects:

Line edits for the LeopardTree fic (K-9). Still needs to be proofread, but also it stands at 7971 words now so I clearly must try and find where to add 29 words... Perhaps the kissing could use a bit more flourish? XD
Cursed Witch (OW) contemplations XD
Finishing and now editing the maid!Ren smut fic (K-9)

Current Mood: okay

svgurl

sapphic-september is a multi fandom daily prompt event that is focused on f/f ships that takes place in September

soulmark-september is a soulmate themed prompt challenge that will take place in September

whumptember is month long whump themed prompt based event in September

ljfriends is a community where you can try to find and reconnect with old Livejournal friends

ficinabox, a multifandom exchange where you are signing up to create 10k of works with possible various medium options, is still open for sign-ups until August 30th, 9:59PM Eastern.

ififitsifics, a multifandom exchange with focus on cats of all kinds (house cats, cat-persons, people transformed into cats) is still open for sign-ups until August 31st, 10AM BST. More info, including links on where to sign-up, is HERE.

thestoryinside, a challenge where you are paired up with someone and pick three books off their TBR based off the voted for themes and vice versa, is open for September sign-ups until the end of August 31st.

bbtp_challenge is back for its 20th round of Bring Back the Porn Challenge. On September 1st, post something porny to your journal or favorite archive and then go back to the community and drop off a link.

Stuffed With Love is a multifandom incest exchange. Sign-ups are open and will close on September 6th, midnight Eastern Time.

minutia_r is running Multifandom Poetry Fest, a prompt fest for poetry for all fandoms.

marinehaddock

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kradeelav

> People who do/don't drink coffee: why did you start?
> I don't drink coffee and I've never wanted to, but that's obviously ~not normal~, so I'm curious why most people do start drinking it.

(source, via am-herrington)

thinking back, i always had chronic exhaustion (most likely culprit being osteoarthritis from birth), and initially i appreciated that morning kick, but also really love the warmth, even in southern summers. to me it has more body/flavor than tea, which i try to get into several times a year but never could.

starbucks mochas very specifically (no other mocha) also have a weird mystery ingredient that usually lends a really strong drawing "groove" kick for the rest of the day. used to have a bad reliance on those when i worked in-office since there was one within walking distance, but now it's just a once a month treat.

generally these days it's a stringent x2 small cups of dunkin donuts per day (via those giant costco tins). :) cheap, good moderation, still gets the kick.

rigormorphis

I really liked Cameron Reed's What We Are Seeking overall. It has a lot to recommend it. But while I unreservedly loved the first half, I found myself increasingly disappointed and frustrated with the turns the story was taking as I read through the second.

I should say that many of my thoughts here came from a) a conversation with Tumblr user moongoer, and b) another conversation with skygiants and brownbetty on Mastodon. Credit where credit is due!

( cut for spoilers. also for length. hilarious that I thought this would just be a few sentences )

swingandswirl

TBA

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All Things Small Web

Member Posts

(no subject)

2026 Hugos

Well, Holy Shit, Annabel.

[Final Fantasy IV] Earthbound Dragon

Trying out Ellipsus Plus "Writing Insights"

The good!

The bad? Well. Many of the actual grammar bits, unfortunately, but that's on me!

Stuff I can mitigate

Real problems I do need a grammar checker to help with :(

Games and Shows, oh my! (potential spoilers)

Six Sentence Sunday

(no subject)

signal boosting x2!

Fic: 'Saddle Up' - The Pitt - Michael "Robby" Robonavitch/Dennis Whitaker - Rated: PG

Winning

🌙

meme: This or That & DW history

(no subject)

Mostly Weekly Writing Logs - August 30th, 2026 - Line editing

current fandom events

Changelog August 29th

(no subject)

[book review] What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed

FIAB 2026 Letter

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August 2026

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